News - Ofcom's Sky consultation could result in cheaper footy on rival services

[HEXUS]

Ofcom has today launched a consultation that could force Sky to make its premium content available to rival operators at regulated prices.

Read more.

[shaithis]

Speechless.

Sky pay all that money to secure exclusives, then Ofcom can jump in and force them to sell them at "regulated rates".........

Where were these governing bodies when Sentata bought up ENGLAND INTERNATIONALS exclusively and decided to keep them to raise subscription?

[Anth]

I fully agree with the Satanta statement above.

I feel the national games should be regulated to ensure they are viewable by all, meaning on national free to air TV.

Regards to Club teams thats fine, but the national sport should be accessable by all.

And having the critical games, like Croatia, on some two bit subscription channel that nobody subscribes to, (and those that have post horror stories about its quality and tactics on trying to cancel) should not be allowed.

With regards to the article if the premiership football comes onto Freeview for a similar price to sky's I think that will be the time sky goes out of our house completely.

[Nelviticus]

That's technically not speechless, but what the heck.

Sky are the ones who bought up all the football and cricket matches that the fans used to watch for free on TV, then started selling them back to those very same people. Damn right there should be some competition in this market.

If someone came along and bought up all the sunshine then tried to sell it back to me I'd be pretty cheesed off.

[shaithis]

If someone came along and bought up all the sunshine then tried to sell it back to me I'd be pretty cheesed off.

So would most people, fortunately that's nothing at all like what is happening with these TV deals.

Were BBC/ITV getting these sports/movies for free before Sky? Hell no. Have Sky upped the amount that can be charged for them? Of course.

The bottom line is, the terrestrial channels cannot compete with Sky, even though they had a HUGE head start on them. Sky charge for a premium service that most of it's customers are happy to pay for......as the old saying goes "you get what you pay for" and when I compare Sky to another "premium" service like Virgin, there is no comparison IMO. I wonder how Virgin keep customers at all.

[TheBloodyNine]

I dont see how having services like setanta is good for the consumer.

All you end up with is half the sport on one premium service and half the sport on the other meaning you have to pay twice to see everything. What a great deal.

It should either be everything on one service or everything for free.

[Stoo]

I'm glad Sky have been forced to sell it's stake in ITV - it was only ever a spoiler move to prevent Virgin from taking it over and forcing some real competition in the market.

SKY are seriously frightened by freeview - especially after the digital switch-over, and will do anything they can to stop it eating into their cash-cow..

[3dcandy]

Well we shall soon see what happens with the global markets in turmoil. I for one expect Sky to start losing customers at a horrendous amount once the real effects of a lack of money bring. Most people I know are either reducing their packages or going to cancel them all together to save money. It is strange to think that Setanta point blank refused to sell the rights to the last international, a policy which I'm sure will alienate people rather than make them sign up!

[martinm10]

will help bring the price down - but whos got any money

[shaffaaf27]

i like this. got sky sports onyl for the next season to see ALOT of the games have been moved to setanta, and i dont have the money to pay for setanta was well, but now ill hopefully be able to pay for both

[shaithis]

i like this. got sky sports onyl for the next season to see ALOT of the games have been moved to setanta, and i dont have the money to pay for setanta was well, but now ill hopefully be able to pay for both

Do you think Sky will carry on paying through the nose if it means having to sell packages cheap and give up customers? Hell no.

All this will do is spread all the sport out further, causing viewers to need multiple subscriptions more then ever.

The last time these guys stepped in and split the premiership games up, it cost viewers more money to see the same games they watched the previous season and that was even with Sky waiving their extra fee that they charged to view all televised games.

To further add to this joke of a situation, they do not mention once about forcing ITV to give their ITVHD channel to Sky (the UKs biggest pioneer of HD programming by FAR). ITV have purposely made the channel in such a way that Sky cannot add it to their EPG in the hope that they will sell FreeviewHD boxes to Sky customers.

Funny how exclusivity seems fine when your not top dog.....